4 ms·

I think it's just that Apple in this case has complete control over the ecosystem so they can mandate screen reader support(there's probably a Linux utility out

I think it's just that Apple in this case has complete control over the ecosystem so they can mandate screen reader support(there's probably a Linux utility out there which only supports GTK), has a culture of perfection(there's no way that these features provide a good RoI), and is able to charge a high enough premium to subsidise these things. I read Free Software: Free Society and I was amazed at how RMS's economic plan was basically 1) unis fund early development, 2) developers flesh out the ecosystem for free, 3) users start flooding in and, 4) these users magically start paying(or the hardware manufacturers do).

simonh 10y ago
What this model misses is that it takes a lot more investment to make great software than just some developer time. It takes designers, artists, testers and depending on the software experts in specific fields. That's a huge investment in resources completely outside the software development field itself. Universities by themselves just don't have the research and investment capacity to carry advances in every single domain software can be applied to. They have other things to do too. Back in the 60s it might have looked like the majority of effort to develop software just took some time by developers, but nowadays in many areas the developer time is a fraction of the overall effort required. It takes huge investment and if there is one thing Capitalism is good at, it's the productive and efficient deployment of capital. It's right there in the name.
masklinn 10y ago
> I think it's just that Apple in this case has complete control over the ecosystem so they can mandate screen reader support I don't believe they mandate it (how would that work for games?), but Apple provides excellent tooling and support throughout the system and it's built into all native controls so adding it to an application requires relatively little effort. See joshaidan's comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13846160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13846160
DasIch 10y ago
Apple has control over the hardware, the operating system and their own apps but not over the entire ecosystem. This gets them far but only so far. The big difference they've made is that they've created tools to make integration with Voice Over so easy, that it's a no brainer to do what little work needs to be done to make an app accessible and to increase demand for it. They've managed to turn a burden into something that has an obvious economic benefit for app developers. Also I'm fairly sure that there is actually a good RoI. It might not be massive but in the long term having the monopoly on phones for blind people surely pays off.

simonh 10y ago

What this model misses is that it takes a lot more investment to make great software than just some developer time. It takes designers, artists, testers and depending on the software experts in specific fields. That's a huge investment in resources completely outside the software development field itself. Universities by themselves just don't have the research and investment capacity to carry advances in every single domain software can be applied to. They have other things to do too. Back in the 60s it might have looked like the majority of effort to develop software just took some time by developers, but nowadays in many areas the developer time is a fraction of the overall effort required. It takes huge investment and if there is one thing Capitalism is good at, it's the productive and efficient deployment of capital. It's right there in the name.

masklinn 10y ago

> I think it's just that Apple in this case has complete control over the ecosystem so they can mandate screen reader support I don't believe they mandate it (how would that work for games?), but Apple provides excellent tooling and support throughout the system and it's built into all native controls so adding it to an application requires relatively little effort. See joshaidan's comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13846160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13846160

DasIch 10y ago

Apple has control over the hardware, the operating system and their own apps but not over the entire ecosystem. This gets them far but only so far. The big difference they've made is that they've created tools to make integration with Voice Over so easy, that it's a no brainer to do what little work needs to be done to make an app accessible and to increase demand for it. They've managed to turn a burden into something that has an obvious economic benefit for app developers. Also I'm fairly sure that there is actually a good RoI. It might not be massive but in the long term having the monopoly on phones for blind people surely pays off.